A 17-week professional experience program was undertaken to enable a college professor to: (1) attend and present a paper at the 14th World Conference of the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE) in Oslo, Norway, in December 1988; (2) gain first hand information about innovations in the use of telecommunications in the delivery of distance education programs; and (3) examine ways in which cooperative arrangements between institutions and groups in the preparation and delivery of distance education courses have been, and are being, developed. The report, a summary of site visits in Canada, England, Scotland, and West Germany, includes a brief outline of the program; a summary of the conference; descriptions of some of the many communications technologies used to deliver distance education in some of the institutions visited; and descriptions of cooperative ventures undertaken by some institutions. Twelve appendixes, which constitute more than half of the report, include flyers and information bulletins from the institutions visited, and a paper--"The Use of Electronic Mail in Distance Education" (Bruce Scriven)--which was presented at the ICDE Conference. (GL)